[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, May 30, 1996
.1325 
[Translation]
The Chair: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It gives me great pleasure to call this meeting to order.
[English]
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you today. It's vital for the members of this committee to be able to hear your information and then to read it with great care. It is information that parliamentarians need in order to give enlightened guidance to the counsel of the House of Commons and thereby hopefully bring in enlightened measures depending on the issues at hand.
I think you're very well aware of the fact this committee did a very important follow-up study called The Grand Design, which we tabled in December of 1995. We had nine recommendations I know you were familiar with and we asked the government to respond.
I just wanted to outline for those who, in the future, from an archival perspective, may well be reading this or pulling it up on Internet, that the recommendations fundamentally or basically aimed at ensuring accountability at the political and bureaucratic level, at ensuring interdepartmental collaboration, and at the inclusion of disability-related concerns in policy and program development. I call that the disability lens. The government has to look through several lenses. One is the gender lens and the other is the disability lens.
The recommendations also aimed at the need for legislative and regulatory review to remove barriers to full participation by people with disabilities - and I think the fundamental one there, too, is communication policy; at protection for people with disabilities in the implementation of the new CHST; at accommodation in all federally funded employment and training measures; at a review of the federal tax system, including both tax policy and tax administration - it was in that interest that we had the Minister of National Revenue here; at federal and provincial collaboration to conduct a comprehensive review of disability policies and programs; and, lastly, at maintaining the vocational rehabilitation of the disabled persons program, which is the mechanism of federal cost-sharing of certain provincial disability programs.
I know you are quite familiar with all of these. You are, if I could suggest, important professional advocates who enable us to function. So fundamentally I'd like to hear your response to the minister's response. The minister will be here next week.
Secondly, I'd appreciate it if you can - and if you feel this is within the reason you're here - look at what the federal role is, given the evolution of the federation and its definition as a flexible federation. Where do you see the federal and provincial roles as separate or where do they perhaps coalesce, and where are the special effects you would like to see take place?
I think it would be appropriate for us, so that we can perhaps give some guidance to the minister when he's in here with respect to how you see it and where you see it. And if you had a helicopter and were overhead and looking down on our society, what would be the three main wishes you might want to see us put forward, if that would be a possibility in today's evolving society?
With that, Francine Arseneault, I believe you are going to start. If you would introduce yourself and the witnesses at the table, we'd be most appreciative. I want to underscore that I hope your waiting time has not disaccommodated you too much, but that's life on Parliament Hill.
Ms Francine Arseneault (Chair, Council of Canadians with Disabilities): Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
I'm Francine Arseneault, chairperson of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. I want to thank you for the opportunity for us all to meet with you again. We are very much aware of the report you mentioned, The Grand Design, and we're very pleased with the recommendations that were in it. Our job today is to look at the government's response, A House Open to All: A Shared Responsibility. To do that, we've come together.
.1330
I will introduce the people at the table and each of them will cover one of the areas that we think are important to speak to. Laurie Beachell is the national coordinator of the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. We have Pierre Quenneville and Jean-François Martin from the Canadian Association for Community Living. Lucie Lemieux-Brassard is from COPHAN. Traci Walters and Allan Simpson are from the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres. Frank Smith is from the National Educational Association of Disabled Students.
I want to bring to your attention that in the red book we're all so familiar with, there was a statement that we want a country whose people live in hope and not fear; we want a country where all of us see ourselves as contributors and participants, not liabilities and dependants; we want a country whose adults can find good jobs and whose children can realize their potential. It goes on with another paragraph that looks at a vision of Canada that we all expected we would be able to have.
In the report that the government makes to your report, there is a statement that provides a different kind of vision. The last two paragraphs on page 6 talk about a devolution of responsibility, a passing of government spending power not used in areas of exclusive provincial jurisdiction and withdrawn from areas more appropriately the responsibility of other sectors.
The disabled community is distressed by this. This vision has changed substantially from what we were led to believe was going to be the kind of vision we could find hope in, not fear. I'd like some of our members here to speak to that vision and how they see the vision could be, rather than the vision suggested here.
Allan, perhaps you would like to begin by talking about the vision of Canada as we'd like it to be.
Mr. Allan Simpson (Board Member, Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres): I'm involved with the national executive of the Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres, CAILC, and the Winnipeg Independent Living Resource Centre. I have a history with both the insurance industry and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities in its earlier years.
In our sharing, deliberations and search, we began to look back into the nature of our society, the nature of citizenship, the nature of our relationship to our state. We were very impressed and pleased when members of this parliamentary committee with its excellent history and members of all parties rose above partisan politics, rose above the jurisdictional issues we are all sharing and struggling with in Canada today, to see that the nature of disability, the relationship of people with disabilities as full citizens, was so crucial and so important that it really symbolized the whole country.
With the loss of relationships of the same people, as quoted by some, those people belonging to another jurisdiction, we began to realize that it would affect not only the status of disabled citizens, but would set in motion a standard, a tone, for all Canadian society: that there are parts of our country that are not full citizens or do not have entitlement to full citizenship.
Even though we're at a crossroads today, we saw in Canada a vision, and our international colleagues throughout the world see the relationship of disabled people to our country and our provinces and our municipalities as unique, golden, a modern society that treasures and values and brings forth the most hidden potential of all citizens.
Disabled people in the last 15 or 20 years helped evolve the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. We negotiated with Mr. Chrétien daily and with the parliamentary committee in those days about the inclusion of disabled people as full citizens. We knew that if we were not part of that charter, we would become second-class citizens. In this current debate we are beginning to see that the nature of Canada is shifting. But we must not see citizens as blocks to be moved. We must see relationships as horizontal, crossing all boundaries, crossing all jurisdictions and crossing all sectors.
.1335
When you relegate disabled people to charity, to dependence, to the image that they're a burden on society, you cheapen society. You begin to set doubt and dismay in the hearts and minds of seniors, youth and everyone who has a disability, and everyone in this room has one in one form or other. You begin to lose hope in your country and belief in your society.
These groups today are not after great personal power or wealth or anything. We're trying to shore up the role of citizens and the country as a whole and make our leadership and our contributions known. It affects our families, it affects our neighbours, it affects our communities, it affects our churches, it affects our businesses, it affects our self-help centres. We have a chance in this country to rebuild the spirit of Canada, with its necessary and valued provincial counterparts and relationships. We have a chance to lead. Disabled people have a chance to contribute and lead. We need this parliamentary committee's help, we need the minister's help, and we need the cabinet's help. We need each party in the House to continue to rise above partisan politics.
My friend's white best here in front of me represents hope or it represents the white flag of surrender. I see in that white flag seedlings and butterflies, with colour and brilliance growing. But I could take this glass of water with its healing powers or its flooding capacity for destruction, and I could pour it over those butterflies and seedlings as they grow up that society. Behind that action is a thought: to help or to hinder. Behind that thought is a value: how do I value the citizens growing in that white blanket? Are they full citizens or are they worms to be destroyed?
Yes, globalization will be a force around us, but no, Mr. Chrétien, it cannot be allowed to destroy the hidden talents and contributions of people with disabilities. We all have a contribution to make. We all want to be contributors. We all have work potential. We all have gifts to give and families to raise. We must - we must - recognize all disabled people as full citizens.
The major challenge I would share with my colleague Traci here is that when the minister challenges us to look at new partnerships, it can either be with leadership and demonstrated capacity, or it can be a very loose-knit group of folks sitting around a table and going around in circles for ever and ever. Yes, Canada has sharing, has compassion, has a network of federal and provincial levels through which to work things out. But when it comes to the bottom line, national leadership, national security, national goods and services, and national emergencies must be the ultimate responsibility of the federal government. That represents the nature of Canadian society. When the chips are down, the Canadian society, the authority of the federal government, will become effective leaders.
Maybe Traci can take over from my emotions and share some stories of what an IL centre is all about.
Ms Traci Walters (National Director, Canadian Association of Independent Living Centres): Before I do that, I want to respond. We want to talk about the lack of substance in the federal government's response to the standing committee.
We had all kinds of hope last fall when we appeared before this committee and saw a committee of all parties that agreed that with this block funding, some people are going to be hurt in this country. We appeared before you and you tabled your report, your excellent report, December 13. We had hopes. All our organizations would have ceased to exist as of March 31. So we sat back; we had hope that in this country there is a consultative process and somebody would listen.
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Then, at the end of January, we heard that doomsday had come. We received a letter that we were going to be out from under federal responsibility. Later we got more of the message, when the federal government tabled its response.
We found that pretty well for everything there was a no. After all your strong recommendations, it was no to the Secretary of State with formal and specific mandates concerning disability. It was no to a national strategy, no to a clear vision, no to intergovernmental collaboration, no to an annual report on disability-related matters, no to memoranda to cabinet to explain the impact of what this is doing yearly to people with disabilities. It was no to a social audit, no to standards, no to the next census collecting data regarding disabilities, and no to protecting vocational rehabilitation - no definite protection for that program. There was no commitment to disability and no commitment and recognition for the hard work that our organizations, run by and for people with disabilities, do. The contributions we have made over the past 15 years... Independent living and our movement, the work, all these self-help organizations at the local level helping other people develop their skills so they can integrate into society, get jobs, and contribute politically, economically, culturally, and socially...
All of this was a complete, clear no, but there were actually two yeses...well, a maybe and a yes. Maybe there will be a legislative review some day. That's some day. We will not be around some day, because we've all been given notice of our funding being cut and eliminated. So when there is a legislative review, there will be no people with disabilities around that table talking about what is needed to protect people with disabilities in this country.
There was a strong yes. Yes, Mr. Young is saying that he is the lead minister responsible for disabled Canadians. We've got all of these no's, but a definite yes, that he's responsible. Yet he has never met with our organization. They made this strong decision that will have a devastating impact on the lives of Canadians with disabilities. It was no to meeting with us, but yes, he is the lead minister. We are very, very disappointed, and we need to know where this federal government stands in the area of social policy.
Mr. Jean-François Martin (Board Member, Canadian Association for Community Living): Bonjour, good afternoon. Pierre and I are here today on behalf of the Canadian Association for Community Living.
[Translation]
The Chair: Jean-François, you may speak in your own language.
[English]
Mr. Martin: No, I'd rather do it in English and then in French.
The Chair: Okay, good, it's practice.
[Translation]
I'm going to practice my Frenglish.
[English]
Mr. Martin: The Canadian Association for Community Living is a federation of 12 provincial and territorial associations made up of over 40,000 members. We work with and on behalf of people who have an intellectual disability and their families.
Along with many other Canadians, some of our members voted for this government in the hope that it would honour its red book commitments to promote jobs and growth and to create opportunities for Canadians. We estimate that it costs the Canadian economy over $4.6 billion per year to continue to exclude people who have a disability. It is time this government looked more closely at the cost of not providing support and services for employment.
People who have a disability can and want to work. Yet over half the population of people who have a disability are either outside the labour market or unemployed. Currently, it is the system, not the disability, that restricts people from participating as full citizens.
I would like my colleague to illustrate this point.
[Translation]
Pierre, could you introduce yourself?
Mr. Pierre Quenneville (Chairman, Self Advocate Advisory Group, Committee Association for Community Living): My name is Pierre Quenneville. I come from Saguenay - Lac St-Jean, in the province of Quebec.
Mr. Martin: Tell me, Pierre, have you ever had a job?
Mr. Quenneville: I have held a job involving tobacco.
Mr. Martin: How long did you have that job?
Mr. Quenneville: I had it for approximately 11 months.
Mr. Martin: Was that not 11 weeks?
Mr. Quenneville: Eleven weeks, approximately.
Mr. Martin: You worked 11 weeks.
Mr. Quenneville: Yes.
Mr. Martin: Fine. Now what are you doing?
Mr. Quenneville: I'm on social assistance.
Mr. Martin: You receive social assistance?
Mr. Quenneville: Yes.
Mr. Martin: So you do not have a job currently?
Mr. Quenneville: There aren't any.
Mr. Martin: Why do you think you no longer have any work?
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Mr. Quenneville: Because I do not have a school diploma. It is very difficult for me.
Mr. Martin: Very well. You mentioned training.
Mr. Quenneville: There is training which is not very adequate.
Mr. Martin: Are you referring to the 11 weeks of training that you do with a business?
Mr. Quenneville: That's it. Eleven weeks, I think, is too short. It is not enough to qualify for unemployment insurance. You automatically end up on social assistance.
Mr. Martin: Because the business does not keep you after the 11 weeks.
Mr. Quenneville: Exactly.
Mr. Martin: Very well.
[English]
This is one of the examples we can bring of people with disabilities who try to find a job but cannot.
Also, I am the parent of a son with Down's syndrome, an intellectual disability. I didn't choose to have a son with a disability, but I chose to work with him in order for him to achieve the life he wanted. It's easy to say, not so easy to do.
Our first step into society was very difficult for us. Like most parents now, we decided to put our son in a day care centre. I checked the yellow pages and there were five. I called all five centres. No way, they told me: Look at your son, he's different; he does have a disability.
[Translation]
Imagine how we as parents feel when our children take their first steps into society and we're told: "No, there's no room for these children". That day, I would have liked to be in my neighbour's shoes because my neighbour woke up one morning and realized that it was time to send his little girl or little boy to daycare. All he had to do was call a daycare, tell them that they had a child to register, ask if there was room, and the next day the child was taken to the daycare. It was all that simple.
Yet, I have a child and so does he. Mine runs, his runs. Mine cries and is difficult some days, his too. What's the difference? The difference is that mine has what is called trisomy. That is the only difference; otherwise this is a child just like my neighbour's.
[English]
This is why we need a government that will be proactive and will take the leadership role to make sure that all Canadians have the same opportunities and choices to build their own life.
Now my son is in school. Tomorrow he will search for a job. How would you feel if the only thing for your son or daughter, after 21 years, is to stay home and look at TV? Well, sorry, but I don't want that for my son. I want him to finish school and I want him to search for a job, with the same chances as everybody else. But he won't have the chance, because employers will see the disability before the person. This is the main problem. I think if they were to find out that my son was a person before he got a disability and that government is there to support both parties, to ensure the quality of inclusion... Help my son to achieve his dream.
[Translation]
Sometimes my boy and I go for a walk together and he says: "Daddy, I would like to be a teacher like you". Or, when we see a fire truck, he says to me: "I would like to be a fireman when I grow up".
He has dreams just like other children do. Of course he will perhaps never become a teacher, fireman or policeman, but somewhere there is a job waiting for this child.
[English]
Why should I tell him that the only thing he will be allowed to do is stay at home and watch the soap operas on TV - no way - but that Mike, his friend, might be a teacher or a police officer if he wishes for it and if he works for it?
Is that a society in which equity for all is important? No. But I'm still confident in the future. We just need people like you, who believe in human diversity and who will give your hand to a person with a disability and say come and join us and let's share our knowledge; let us build a society in which all Canadians will play a role.
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This is how I see Canada, and this is how I want my son to see Canada when it is time for him to find a job. Thank you.
Ms Arseneault: Lucie.
Ms Lucie Lemieux-Brassard (President, Confédération des organismes provinciaux des personnes handicapées): I'm the one who's going to bring up the national unity issue, national standard, because I sincerely believe in it. As Jean-François just mentioned, we can hear better stories from one part of the country and even worse stories in another part of the country. Is that the country we want?
If we are considered citizens by the Human Rights Act and the charter, we should have the same quality of life and quality of services in response to our needs, to our disability, considering our abilities, which you always tend to forget. It doesn't matter where we live. Unfortunately, the federal government gave up that part.
I was in a meeting in Montreal yesterday with people from the grassroots level, not the chair of the association but people from the ground level, asking me whether I knew what the governments' - I'm talking about both levels of government - real intentions are. We have the feeling they are just trying to find a better, disguised way to purify the race and eliminate us. How am I supposed to answer them?
[Translation]
The Chair: That is not true!
[English]
Ms Lemieux-Brassard: If I'm looking at the fact that we no longer have any more diapers and urinary condoms because the government is saying it's not getting the money from Ottawa, if the people were not getting adaptive transportation because the transfer is not done... That's what the people feel and that's what they experience on a daily basis at this time. When we look at Bill C-12, which says you'll have skill and professional training but only after you've been on UIC, we know damn well we'll never get there.
When we look at all the social services and health changes, and we get the answer from the provincial government, not only in Quebec, but everywhere - we read the newspapers - that Ottawa is not giving them the money with the CHST, that they're losing so they have to cut our services... At the same time they say post-secondary education is cut again. Everywhere we look - medical furniture, additional cash related to disability... How long have we been battling for that one? It is the same thing from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Vancouver. Still, we're waiting for it.
Mr. Young said in the report that he wanted to retain a leadership role in disability issues, but at the same time -
[Translation]
The Chair: What page?
Mr. Bernier (Mégantic - Compton - Stanstead): Page 7.
[English]
Ms Lemieux-Brassard: It's page six and then it goes on. We'll see what will come up. That's what he says on page 6:
- The future style of leadership will change to reflect the commitments made in the 1996 Speech
from the Throne. Federal government spending power will not be used in areas of exclusive
provincial jurisdiction, and will be withdrawn from areas that are more appropriately the
responsibility of other sectors of society.
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All of us around the table know there are nuances, but in Quebec the 912,000 people with disabilities don't know that. Can you imagine how the 15% of Canadians with disabilities would know about the nuances? What they know is what they hear and what they feel. If they have to pay for their diapers or their services or eat... That's a big difference, that's what they feel, that's what they know.
We feel the federal government and Mr. Young should agree and take the lead as he said he would and act on it. Acting on it means setting national standards. We already talked about it last October 26. We've already deposited papers and recommendations about it. Make sure that people with disabilities, regardless of where they live in the country, have the same minimum basic criteria of quality of living and services as any other citizen - not more, but not less. That's the road the federal government can take and should take.
Thank you.
The Chair: I would like to advise you that it's 2 p.m. We must delay the session.
Your perspectives, Allan, Traci, Jean-François, Pierre, and Lucie, have been very moving.
I don't know whether you've completed your presentation. I think each of you has made heartfelt and very important diagnostic observations, which we would want to take into consideration.
I'm going to leave you with this thought. I would appreciate it, Allan, if you and the others would address the question of federal-provincial relations.
Traci, I'd appreciate it if you, if all of you, would look at the issue of the consultation process and how you would like to see it, whether you are satisfied with what was and what you would want to see improved.
I certainly would like to have a look at equality and diversity under the charter. I understand about the will to meet the minister, but is that the essence of that consultation, and do you feel you can get some concrete measures accomplished in that way?
Thank you very much.
This session is adjourned to 3:10 p.m.